Someone's Gotta Do It
by Sickle Cell
Summary: Larry Benvolio takes on a company of mercenaries!


Larry Benvolio was rather certain that this was a bad idea. A very bad idea. An atrociously bad idea. Jumping out of perfectly fine planes had never been his favorite thing on earth, but doing it now, while he was remarkably out of practice at this sort of thing, struck him as being particularly foolish.   
  
Unfortunately, his opinions on the matter weren't of very much importance. He could jump out of the plane, or be pushed. It was that simple.   
  
The transport ship held steady at it's altitude, stayed straight on in it's flight path, and the pilots hadn't spoken a single word to Specialist Benvolio for the entirety of the flight. From a Tir military base they had flown due south, blatantly and brutishly violating airspace agreements, and not even flying low enough to slide under radar. They were making no attempts at stealth, no attempts at subtlety. The rulers of Tir Tairngire were going out of their way to let the Japanese know how displeased they are. They did not like their new neighbors to the south, and they felt it was time to make that displeasure even more obvious.   
  
Not that it mattered, one way or the other, to Larry. Sure, in theory, the idea of some Nip rounding up keebs and torturing them was unpleasant--but the Ghost had other, more personal reasons for accepting this mission.   
  
With an electronic beep unheard over the roar of the wind, Larry's 'chute acknowledged the signal sent from the LAV he'd leapt from nearly five minutes before. The parachute harness slammed against his chest and thighs with bruising force as the 'chute itself bit into the air one and one-half seconds later than it should have--machine error, possibly; more likely, Ghost politics at work.   
  
Again, it didn't matter one way or the other, to Larry--the important part was that the 'chute had seventy or so fewer meters with which to slow his descent. "Sonova--hurk!" The elf is slammed into his harness, the wind knocked out of him, by the sheer force of the 'chute catching air. He was out of practice at this. Absurdly so. He wasn't in the mood to leap out of a plane, he wasn't in the mood to use a 'chute someone else had packed, and he wasn't in the mood for the landing that was about to come. He could see fine, unlike most night-time parachutists, thanks to his many cyberoptic enhancements. But that never seemed to help him land these things gracefully.   
  
The internal GPS system's altitude display, blinked into being over his optics field of vision, lowered all too rapidly. Meters dwindled away as Larry struggled with the now-unfamiliar parachute, trying to swing it around, to angle his descent, to find a clear spot for his landing. "I'm not getting paid enough for this, not by a longshot." It's the last coherent thought to cross through his head, before the tangle of trees, whipping branches, blinding leaves, stinging cuts, and the thunder of impact. Ackward impact.   
  
Keep your feet together!   
  
That was the last thing the Ghost jumpmaster had told Larry before kicking him out of the LAV. That piece of advice, recalled a half-second before impact, made a bad sprain out of a probable broken ankle.   
  
When the elf starts paying attention again, he notes the GPS marker in his eye pointing behind him and to the left--the first and only waypoint. The elf curses under his breath as he unsnaps the quick release harnesses, as he tests his ankle for it's ability to bear weight, as he readies his weapons, as he makes a mental note to see someone stabbed for this. Stupid planes.   
  
His Colt Cobra is shouldered smoothly, it's matte black finish as light absorbing as his armor, and starts off. Only a half second after the flare of the sprain burned through his leg, Larry's pain dampening bioware had taken over, and he no longer felt it, no longer worried about it, barely remembered it. All that mattered now was following his internal nav-system and GPS waypoints, and paying attention to his smartlink's weapon display output, in the corner of his eye. It was time to worry about the job, and only the job.   
  
Sliding noiselessly through the undergrowth, Larry reviews the data provided for the target site--mostly flyby satcam shots. The rogue Nipponese rifle company had set up shop in an abandoned logger camp, located in the hollow of a semi-circular cliff enclosing an area about a hundred meters across. The logging company had excavated several caves in the base of the cliff before being eaten by a wandering pack of tree-huggers; presumably, the captive elves were being held there. The camp was supposedly accessible only by the lone, mud road which led to it, guarded now by a simple log platform.   
  
Which is why Larry was coming in from behind, over the cliff. The elf continues through the underbrush, silent and shadowed. He gets nearer and nearer the cliff edge, when he freezes suddenly. Noise. Someone muttering in Cantonese.   
  
Larry's linguasoft files through itself with the speed of his cranium-mounted mini supercomputer. He understands the mutterings, and suppresses a grim smile. One man, talking to himself, complaining about sentry duty. It was a universal thing, as any soldier can attest. He stays still and silent, listening, for a few long moments. Slow and steady breathing from another man, no sound from a third. Two man teams, then. Good. A few noiseless steps later, and the two sentries come into view as lighter green figures against the dark green backdrop of night sky and forest, limned by halos of body heat in the infrared.   
  
The ring sights settle on the standing soldier's head and surround the electronic targetting pip of Larry's smartlink, which feeds him range, movement, and projected 'weak spots'. For two long seconds, the elf remains stock-still, allowing his target one last drag on the cigarette in his lips.   
  
Taka-taka-tak! The soldier's head bursts in a spray of brains and heat-bright smoke, his body toppling even as Larry's weapon slides to his next target, still fast asleep beneath his poncho. The lightly snoring soldier jerks as a second three-round whisper punches through his face. Larry pauses for a silent thirty count, sliding his eyes shut and focusing solely upon his superbly enhanced sense of sound, for the first fifteen. Without his augmented sense of sight to distract him, he's able to concentrate solely on his motion sensing audible sensors. The night is still displayed, for simplicity's sake, over his field of vision despite closed eyes, but it remains silent and still. No blinking icons overlay themselves on the blackness that is all he sees, no directional displays alert him to hostile presences, no targets are logged and monitored in his vicinity. After that fifteen count, his eyelids slide back open, and the night returns to him in all it's low-light and heat-sensing glory. He finishes his full thirty count, matching it to the seconds-ticker in his cyberoptic display, before moving out into the small clearing.   
  
He pads out towards the pair of corpses silently but smoothly, kneeling next to one to swiftly pat the body down, taking a quick inventory of what it's wearing, what it's armed with, what obvious cyberware it has...what to expect. Before his headware timer has finished off the minute it started as the corpses fell, the elf is gone again, continuing towards his nav-gps displayed target.   
  
Five point three meters ahead of schedule, the cliff comes into view. Overlooking a squat building that had once been the headquarters of a prospective logging camp. The company had ended up falling to lawsuits filed by rabid tree-huggers, and the austere structure now commanded nothing but a field of grass and mud, enclosed by the twenty-meter walls of a natural cul-de-sac, wider than a football field at its mouth and half again as deep.   
  
A single mud road led into the area, passing under the concertina barricade set up by the Nip Army's hired thugs. To the left of the entrance into the derelict camp, they'd constructed a rough watchtower; magnification and light amp made it hard to pick out the specifics, but it looked like they had a machine gun nest set up. Lining the walls of the cliff was a small tent city, full of off-shift soldiers and mercs. Beneath Larry's field of vision--or so the mission specs told him--there were a series of caves blasted into the cliff base, originally constructed for equipment storage. Now, it was the most likely spot for the elves that had been rounded up. Larry knows that if it's difficult for his own augmentations and perceptions to get a clear image of what's in the guard tower, it will take nothing short of an act of God to make them notice him in return. He pads back across the small clearing, and finds himself a suitable anchor tree. A few scant moments later, and the elf is hanging back over the edge of the cliff, much like he was standing just barely within the plane, minutes before.   
  
This time, however, Larry knows quite well what he's doing. Silently pulled from the small spool attached to his combat harness, clipped onto him securly on one end and wrapped and fastened around the tree on the other end, the stealth climbing line is more than capable of holding two to three times his weight. Larry knows that, and appreciates that, and is familiar and comfortable with that, from personal experience. As he starts down the sheer cliff face, bounding down in distance-eating "jumps" in handfulls of two and three, he feels as safe and secure as when he strolls down a Seattle street. Not like when someone pushes him out of an airplane.   
  
A drop of seven or eight meters, and then a pause as the elf twists and scans the area again. Another two quick hops and drops, another eight meters down, another pause. Biosculpted muscles combine with impact resistant bones, vat grown tendons work in tandem with strengthened and lubricated joints, and the elf's descent is swift, smooth, and silent.   
  
Halfway down, he slides to a halt as he picks up a thermo signature below him. Twisting to the side, he spots a lone merc pissing against the cliff face, not a meter from where Larry's descent line dangled. Grimacing, he locked the line around his figure-eight and crabbed his body sideways until he could get the Cobra pointed in the right direction.   
  
The half-drunk merc grunts spasmodically as he crashes against the cliff, then slides to the ground--less a cry for help than the reassurance of a nervous system telling itself that it wasn't really dead, despite the fact that most of his brain was decorating his boots. Landing lightly, Larry ignores the non-sensation that meant his ankle was protesting the abuse he was heaping on it. Crouching, he surveys the scene: slight movement from the tent city, a little more from the tower; none from the headquarters building, or the three caves to his left. It looked as though the Tir intel had been dead on; the blasted-out tunnels were closed off by rows of concertina wire, and each had an armed merc lazing somewhere near the entrance. Staying hunched over as he moves, a low black blur in the darkness of the Northern California night. His Cobra submachinegun swings left to right, right to left, as the elf's cyberoptics sweep the area. Even silently and stealthily, the Ghost is able to move at a smooth easy hustle faster than some men can all-out sprint. Within moments, he's halfway across the compound, as completely unnoticed as if he'd been back under the protective blanket of a Belladonna cast Invisibility spell.   
  
He keeps his ultimate target, the headquarters building, always in sight, always in his mind. Another mercenary drops, never knowing what killed him, just outside the main door. There's a flicker of motion, and a silhouette appears in one of the windows. World-class cyberoptics enhance and clarify the image, showing that it's another mercenary, standing sentry, his gaze moving closer and closer to Larry's position. Closer, closer...too close. The elf's Colt is shouldered again, and another burst flies true. The sentry falls to the ground, dead before his near-headless corpse thumps loudly. But the thump is drowned out, not by the suppressed burst of submachinegun fire, but by the shattering of the glass window the guard was standing behind. A regrettable decision, but one that had to be made.   
  
"Iggy mock hooder pam!" someone inside shouts, or something to that effect. As Larry slips around the side of the building, he hears activity both inside and out among the tent city. There's some motion in the caves, but nothing to worry about--freeing them wasn't his job. After some mental calculation, Larry crouches low and makes for a slight depression in the otherwise-flat field. Hunkering down in it, he faces the tent city and brings his Cobra up.   
  
Taka-taka-tak. A target stumbled and fell to the ground, an inert lump in the hazy green night.   
  
Taka-taka-tak.   
  
...Taka-taka-tak. Taka-taka-tak. Three more.   
  
Taka-taka-tak. The snap of the Cobra's action is a bare whisper among the confused shouting and occasional ripping autofire as the bewildered mercenaries searched the darkness for their unknown foe.   
  
Taka-taka-tak.   
  
The elf lowers his Cobra, and starts off across the field for some high grass. He could cut down on their numbers slowly but surely, dodging from concealment to concealment. True cover would be hard to find, if not impossible. Tents wouldn't do much to stop bullets, but line of sight was another matter.   
  
A dark shadow hunched over and moving swiftly, he's almost impossible for them to spot. That's the trick of it, fire from one spot, get them all searching that spot... and move, and start shooting from somewhere else. The Cobra is shouldered again, and five seconds stretch out into slow motion. Three more mercenaries fall, a fourth, a fifth. That's enough, time to move again.   
  
"No go rope a Wendy toss!" one of the mercs shouts, off to Larry's left--"Shit, where'd he come from?" Running towards him, the merc fires off a wild spray before Larry's return fire punches through his cheek. Guided by their comrade's shout, a handful of mercs charge through the night about fifteen meters ahead of Larry's actual position; four of them managed to orient themselves in the right direction after Larry sent a burst through the first one's temple. "Discretion, dot dot dot, valor." Larry's off and running, a dirty surprise waiting for his assailants back at the clump of tall grass he's running from. They begin to shoulder weapons, start to aim -- two even manage ackward hits on the angles of Larry's armor, shots bouncing off into the night -- but their aiming is short lived. With a sharp crack and the light of a supernova (compared to the otherwise pitch blackness), the elf's flash-bang grenade explodes behind him.   
  
On cue, the elf plants one foot firmly, spins, raises his Colt. His assailants stagger, clutch at their eyes, tear off overloaded night vision goggles. They roar in pain, they blink at the light, they try to find their enemy. And, lastly, they die. Larry's submachine gun spits out a hail of bullets, chewing into torsos and throats, and half of the mob drops, bleeding and dying. Then, like a Ghost, he's gone--sprinting back towards the squat rectangle of the headquarters building.   
  
Three and a half meters out, he leaps into the air, letting momentum carry him to the wall at the apex of his jump. Planting a gloved hand on the roof, he uses the remainder of that momentum to swing his legs up, twisting in mid-air to land silently on the bare surface. Immediately, he flattens and scans the area slowly, judging the situation. On top of the fire tower, some thirty meters distant, three men are working to spin a large spotlight on its mount, presumably for use in discovering who has invaded the camp. There's more commotion over by the tent city, but it's unfocused and confused; Larry rolls to one side to swap out his 9mm parabellum clip for one marked as Ares-9 Needler--tight bundles of plastic rods backed by cordite, designed to cause maximum tissue distortion. Sighting on the center spotlight man, Larry does a three-count before cybernetically instructing his Cobra to cycle. The target's head explodes as the superdense plastic rods bounce and tumble through it; as he falls, Larry moves on to the man on his left and cycles the Cobra's action again. The third man had had the foresight to wear his kevlar helmet; Larry sprays him with a hissing burst, and enough of rods find their way through or around the ballistic-resistant weave that the man jerks and goes down.   
  
There's a pause, for ten heartbeats, before Larry's certain nothing has been noticed. He bound back off the roof, the tall grass muffling his footfalls as he crouches low and darts towards the now-empty tower. The augmented muscles in his arms and legs strain and pull, and he's up the ladder and hunched below the machine gun scant seconds later.   
  
"I haven't fired one of these since Basic." The elf shoves the thought aside as he draws himslef up behind the weapon and grips it's handles and trigger securely. The heavy weapon swings smoothly around in his grasp, and is soon aiming at the nearest patrol. Then thunder and fire fill the night in long bursts, and the unsuspecting men are torn to shreds as the muzzle bucks and trembles against recoil, and strafes back and forth their position.   
  
Larry eases off the triggers, and hears the shouts and cries and desperate radio conversations below him. A thumb-flick brings the tower's heavy spotlight into play, glaring and blazing down at the remnants of the patrol he'd just shot at. As they cry out again at overloaded goggles and cover their eyes, he's already on the move once more. "From one compromised location to another, until there's just no one left to spot me."   
  
The Gut-Eating Dogs--at least, that's what the keebs at intel said the Nip-hired Cantonese-Vietnamese mercs called themselves--were probably the cream of the southeast Asian crop, as far as guns for hire went. All the on-duty soldiers were equipped with NVGs, and the guards on the tower facing Larry were armed with underbarrel Armalite knockoffs--30mm grenade launchers, mounted beneath the Semopal clones they carried. Not bad, if all you're doing is slaughtering helpless villagers.   
  
The machine gun nest Larry had just left cracks apart with the sound hot grease poured into water; his thermo kicks out, overloaded by the twin waves of burning phosphorus that wash over him. The grenadiers shout and point, having caught sight of his ebony form a moment before it was engulfed in roaring flame. Excitedly, they jabber into their short-range headset radios--the intruder is down! We got the shit-licking son of a bitch!   
  
The elf tumbles and rolls, fighting the wash of animalistic panic that roars up inside him as the inferno washes over him. He's dropped and rolled three times before it hits his brain that he's not in any pain. None, at all. It's an unpleasant level of heat, but the fireproofing in the suit overcomes even the wash of flames and heat from an air-timed incendiary grenade. Inside his helmet, the elf grins as he kicks himself up to his feet.   
  
The white phosphorous hisses and crackles around him, but he doesn't need to use his ears to aim. His submachinegun coughs, softly, two, then a third, a fourth time. Two corpses tumble to the ground. Then Larry's a singed shadow, darting towards them. That grenade launcher would be handy.   
  
Rubber-soled boots on wet grass makes a distinct sound, to those with the range and sensitivity of hearing necessary to pick it up. Four distinct sets of swick-swick noises warn him; turning on the balls of his feet, he mutes the thermographic input and amps the light gain. There--four shapes approaching at a crouching trot, formed up in a straggling arrowhead as they search for the unknown intruder who has caused so much trouble. 


End file.
